


Ghost of Savior Past

by damselindisguise



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Circumstances, Blind Character, Canon Disabled Character, Daredevil (TV) Spoilers, Disabled Character, Foggy Doesn't Talk About The Daredevil Issue, Haunting, Is He A Hallucination? Is He A Ghost? The World May Never Know!, M/M, Matimir, Matt Falls In Love With the Most Beautiful People With the Most Problems, Matt Touching Peoples' Faces, Mattimir, One-Shot, Possible Hallucinations, Possible Mental Instability, References to How Matt Looks At The World, Slash, Some of This May Not Be Strictly Set in Canon, Spoilers, Thai Food, Time Skips, Vlatt, World On Fire Vision, enemies falling in love, ghost!character, my first story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3757489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damselindisguise/pseuds/damselindisguise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt can't get the ghost of the Russian man that saved his life, despite being a villain, out of his head; but that's just the question- is it all in his head, or is it something real?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost of Savior Past

**Author's Note:**

> ((A/N: Okay, this is my first published story ever, so please be gentle! Thank you to EpisodeManiac for fixing my former Google Translate Russian and making it correct! This contains spoilers for Season 1 of Daredevil on Netflix. Also, this ship is sailing... I really don't have a lot else to say besides that I don't own Daredevil or make money here, so enjoy, and thanks for reading!))

Matt wishes he couldn’t hear everything so well, some nights. The nights when all he notices are slamming car doors and the water rushing through the pipes. He wishes he couldn’t taste everything. That’s when he tastes the dust in the air, the heat pervading his tongue, or the cold doing the same. He wishes he couldn’t smell everything, smell the old copper from the criminals he assaults at night, and smell the rust on the pipes in the dingy walls. He wishes he couldn’t feel the way the air shifts, or feel the soft vibrations of the neon buzzing of the sign just outside his living room. He doesn’t see it, but he can feel it, every moment. 

Like tonight- tonight, he can feel the way the sign buzzes, but he also feels something lying down beside him. He’s a sane man, but lately the line has been blurring, and when you’re blind, it’s hard to tell what’s a hallucination, and what is not. He’s only really been having one, though.

“Fool,” whispers a Russian voice in his ear. “You’re not real,” he tells the darkness that must be around him, because he can feel it press against his skin comfortingly. He knows that the dark is there, though he may not see it. “I am as real as you make me,” answers the man haunting him, and Matt shivers, tugging his covers around himself tighter as he blinks at nothing. 

“Then go away,” Matt says, “Back to wherever you came from.” “The fire?” asks Vladimir, “The fires are all gone, you know that. Fisk is in prison. Isn’t it time for you to rest?” 

“I’m trying,” Matt grits his teeth, and he swears he feels a shift as the crime lord gets up and moves. “Doesn’t seem like it,” answers the Russian idly, and Matt can hear him moving around, examining the inside of the blind man’s bedroom. He can hear every scrape of his boot against the floor, feel every shift of the air when he turns sharply- like now, as he turns to look at the lawyer. “Seems like you’re still haunting the alley ways at night, Matthew,” he says, and Matt can smell his breath as the specter leans down and impishly states, “Seems like I’m still haunting you, though I can’t see why.” 

“I can’t see it, either,” Matt answers, and Vladimir laughs against the sheets in front of the man. “Of course you can’t,” he says, “You’re blind. A blind man brought down my whole operation. I gave my life so you could go on living; bring down Fisk. Yet you’re still wandering the alleys at night. Tell me why, Matthew.” 

Matt squeezes his unseeing eyes shut, trying to convince himself there’s any difference in the darks, and when he opens them, he can’t feel Vladimir there anymore. 

“Good,” Matt tells the darkness all around him, and lets himself sleep.  
~

The door to Nelson and Murdock opens for him with a tiny tug, and he steps in, folding his stick into his hand, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck raise as Karen looks up at him. “Morning, Matt,” she says, her voice like fine china, and he feels like it’s going to break if he stays too long with Vladimir lingering in his mind, hovering over his shoulder where no one but Matt knows he’s there. 

“Morning, Karen,” Matt says, adjusting his glasses, and hears Foggy come dragging his feet in. “Morning, Foggy,” he adds. “Matt,” yawns his partner, and Vladimir asks coyly, “This is who the great Mask spends his time with? Every day I feel a little more surprised.” Matt would tell him to shut up, but that would betray his deteriorating mind to his co-workers. 

So he doesn’t. 

The lawyer sits down carefully, and he hears Vladimir take up a place against the wall, his coat rustling against the plaster. “Nice dump,” quips the Russian, and Matt purses his lips, wishing he could ignore the Russian better. If only he knew how to banish this hallucination. 

“How do you know I’m not a ghost?” asks Vladimir, as if he can hear Matt calling him a hallucination, “After all, do you know Russian, fool?” 

To prove his point, he adds, “я настоящий.” “What’s that mean?” Matt asks, hoping Foggy doesn’t walk in- but that’s irrational, he can hear Foggy talking to Karen. “Nothing much,” Vladimir says, and then says, “All it means is ‘I’m very real.’”

Matt folds his hands carefully, lacing his fingers through each other. He’s the image of calm. 

“You’re going to break apart if you keep faking,” Vladimir says, his voice full of wild glee. 

“Go away,” Matt says between his teeth. “Maybe,” Vladimir says, and like that, Matt can’t smell him, or taste him, or feel him, or hear him in the room anymore.

The absent heartbeat isn’t, shouldn't seem so, absent, because it never was there.

“So,” Foggy says as he comes in, and Matt tries very hard to forget Vladimir for the time being, instead of worry about the sadistic crime lord living in his head.  
~

“Thai food?” asks the voice Matt is growing used to, from the other side of his empty booth, and the lawyer sighs to himself, picking up another chicken dumpling with his chopsticks. “It’s easy,” Matt answers to no one, muttering it so they won’t see him talking to himself.

“I am here, you know,” Vladimir says, “You could introduce me to your friends.” “You’re dead,” Matt says, fishing out his wallet to pay for his dinner. “Does that matter?” asks the hallucination, and Matt can hear him shifting and licking his fingers as if he’s just eaten some of the Thai food, which is impossible, because he’s a ghost- a figment of Matt’s mind, more than that.

“Yes,” Matt answers bluntly, and returns to his apartment, stick clicking insistently to drown out the off-tune singing of the specter over his shoulder.  
~

“Why do you shower with such hot water?” asks Vladimir, and Matt curses the day he decided to seek out the man and get information- if he hadn’t maybe he wouldn’t be thinking that this hallucination was becoming real. “Because,” he says, “It numbs my skin, so I won’t feel as much until I get back out of the shower.” “Cold water does that too,” answers the crime lord, “Did it plenty at Gulag.” 

“You spent time at the Gulag?” “Yes,” the Russian says, and Matt can hear him shrug, “My brother and I broke out together, eventually. They left a man in our cell after he died, and we used his ribs. Not very pretty.” “I’d imagine not,” Matt says slowly, and he turns his head as if he can look out through fogging shower glass to see the Russian specter. 

The dark just sets there mockingly, and he sighs, turning back to the tiles. “You know,” Vladimir says, “There are other ways you can see. I know that, I’ve seen you do it.” “I see with my other senses,” answers Matt. “Isn’t that the problem?” the Russian questions. “You use hot water because you see world on fire when you see anything. You just want whole world to fit.”

Matt turns his head away from Vladimir this time, and the specter is silent. “I shower hot because in Gulag water always cold,” the Russian says outside the glass, “So I know how you feel. Hot water makes you numb in better ways.” 

The hallucination doesn’t seem to be there anymore, and for once, Matt wishes he hadn’t gone.  
~

“Vladimir,” Matt tests, and the dark stays empty around him for a good long moment before the Russian asks, “What, Matthew? Finally realizing I’m real?” “You’re not real,” Matt denies, and the Russian chuckles, sounding almost like a hyena in the lawyer’s ear. 

“Then why call me?” asks the crime lord. “Because,” Matt says, “There are other ways of seeing. What color are the sheets on my bed?” “Green,” answers the Russian peculiarly, “Dark green.” “So you can see,” Matt says, “Even if I can’t.” “I told you,” Vladimir responds, “Я очень реально.” “’I’m very real,’” Matt quotes, and he can feel the shift as the Russian smiles, the warmth of him lying behind Matt unnerving to the lawyer.

“Like I said,” Vladimir answers, and they lie there for a long time as Matt listens to the absence of a heartbeat. “If I was hallucinating,” he tells the blank spaces, “Then you’d have a heartbeat.” “Is that what you think?” asks the specter, and then Matt goes to sleep with a fake warmth against his back, the scent of the Russian on his sheets, and the taste of Russian vodka pervading his lips.  
~

It’s started to feel normal, when Vladimir wanders around the room that Matt is in. He talks to his clients with the ghost there, many times, and Foggy starts to get confused when he notices the twitches, the way Matt will suddenly give small glances off in random, blank directions. 

“He thinks you’re finally becoming truly disabled,” Vladimir says. “He’s wrong,” Matt answers, and then Vladimir crams into the seat next to him at the Thai place and jostles Matt’s hand aside, apparently having decided to have a little lick for him.

“You’re impossible,” Matt says blankly, and he wonders if people are staring. Maybe they just think he’s a crazy person, now. Maybe that’s what Foggy is going to think, soon, too, and Karen, even.

“Maybe,” the Russian says, and Matt shrugs a little, taking another bite of his food. “We’re on date and no one knows,” Vladimir laughs, and Matt cracks a smile. He can’t really say it’s not a date- he’s always jokingly thought that he was dating himself when he ate alone, and now he eats with the ghost of the crime lord, and he’s very single, besides the odd little thing he sometimes had with Claire, until they became just allies. 

“Maybe,” Matt echoes the Russian, “Maybe.”

“Может быть."

“That’s maybe in Russian, right?”

“Right,” smiles the specter.  
~

Matt leans against the doorway, and he locks the door, listening to the way that Vladimir wanders around in the entryway to his house. “I bought that Russian vodka you recommended,” he tells the ghost, “It was hard to find, and expensive. It had better be worth it.” 

“It will be,” the Russian says, self-assured, and Matt pulls a chair out as he walks by the table, and Vladimir takes a seat easily, his pants scraping along the seat. The only thing Matt can’t hear is the other man’s heartbeat. 

“Why don’t you have a heartbeat?” “Dead people don’t have heartbeats,” answers Vladimir, and Matt sets two glasses of Russian vodka on the table. He hears the other lift his and say, “За разные способы видеть.” “За разные способы видеть,” Matt repeats, and then they click their glasses and they both drink.

“What does that mean?” Matt asks, “За разные способы видеть, I mean.” “It means, ‘To different ways of seeing,’” Vladimir answers, and then he says, “How else do you see, Matthew?” “What, besides all four senses?” “Besides the world on fire,” the Russian confirms. “Like this,” Matt says, as he finishes his glass, and then he reaches out and shuffles over the shadows he can’t see until he finds a warm jaw lined in stubble. 

Vladimir takes a sharp breath of surprise, but he does not pull away. “What color is your hair?” Matt asks, his breath whispering between his lips carefully to cover up the lack of heartbeat with its own noise. “Blond,” answers Vladimir, “Mostly. Dark blond, though.” 

“Hm,” Matt says, and he runs his fingers carefully over a short, straight nose, down-arched brows, and a low forehead, into short hair, “Foggy always says I go after the most pretty person in the room with the most problems.”

The lawyer gets another glass, and he hears Vladimir get up and wander off someplace, but his senses are addled with the heavy content of the Russian drink. “Where are you?” he asks, and as he is going to sleep in his chair, voice slurring with the question, he swears he hears Vladimir regretfully whisper, “Hell.”  
~

The specter doesn’t return for a week, and it leaves a strange hole in Matt’s life, not to have the constant scent of skin and Russian alcohol and the taste of it contaminating the air, and the sounds of the other man shifting, or even the feeling of the ghost wandering too close to him sometimes.

Foggy notices, eventually, and asks Matt what’s off about him. 

“Nothing,” Matt says, “Just… a little lonely, this week, that’s all.” 

They go and Foggy gets a drink after work, but Matt just sets, wishing the ghost would reappear.

On the eighth day, they are at the bar for a second time in the week, and that’s when there’s a scooting sound and the Russian voice murmurs, “Боже, что за свалка... Скучал по мне?” 

Matt jumps and then turns to Foggy. “I’m going to head home, okay?” “Okay,” his partner says, and then he can hear the other wandering off to go hit on some poor girl, probably.

The lawyer stands and clicks his stick side to side, listening to the sounds of Vladimir’s boots hitting the ground as he follows. “Where were you?” Matt asks, once they’re away, and Vladimir says, “You know.” “What did you say when you sat down?” “’Christ, this place is a dump.’” Matt chuckles at that, stopping and holding out a hand for a taxi. He can hear one pull up, and he opens the door, waiting a beat, and Vladimir must have slid in by the sound, so he does, and shuts the door, dispensing his address without really listening to himself.

“Then?” he says under his breath, nudging Vladimir’s shoulder with his own. “I said, ‘Miss me?’” “Well, I did,” Matt says, turning his head as if he’s looking behind the taxi, when in reality he’s speaking into the specter’s ear. He can smell the other man’s hair, washed with simple soap-scented soap, apparently. The Russian vodka taste on his lips returns, and the faint skin scent lurks beneath as Matt bumps his shoulder into Vladimir’s again.

“You lost your coordination, while I was gone,” retorts the ghost, and Matt snorts a little, tapping his stick on his foot as he waits.

The lawyer pays the toll and gets out, pausing as Vladimir follows, and then shuts the door, heading into his apartment. “That sign is inconvenient,” Vladimir says, “I don’t like it.” “No one does,” Matt says, “But it doesn’t bother me.” “What’s the expression? ‘No shit?’” “Like you didn’t know that.”

“True,” Vladimir says, and Matt can hear him shrug as he removes his coat. Matt, too, peels off his suit coat, and they both deposit them before Matt pours a glass of water for himself, and one for Vladimir. The specter sits across from Matt at the chair left pulled out in case of his return, and their knees bump. 

“I’m surprised you missed me,” Vladimir says, and Matt enjoys the sound of the other’s voice, impish and a little nervous, for some reason. He wishes he could listen to the Russian’s heartbeat, but there isn’t one to hear. “You shouldn’t be,” Matt says. “You hate me.” “Not really,” Matt says, “Not… anymore.”

The sound of them both replacing their glasses, Matt’s empty, resounds, and then he can feel the heat of Vladimir’s body shift, lean forward. “Lean forward, Matthew,” says the other. “Matt,” the lawyer says. “Matt,” amends the ghost.

He does, then, and the Russian is only an inch or so away, his breath ghosting, tasting of vodka, across the other’s face. Then he leans forward and presses his lips over Matt’s, his stubble rubbing over Matt’s own lined face, scraping over the lawyer’s five o’clock shadow as they kiss.

“Ты мне нужен,” whispers the crime lord. “What?” Matt asks. “I need you,” translates the ghost. “Of course you do,” Matt says, “I’m the reason you’re still around.” 

There’s a short silence and then Matt says, “I suppose I need you too, don’t I?” “Why else would I still be here?” Vladimir questions.  
~

“Matt?” Foggy calls, and the lawyer flinches awake, reaching behind himself to feel for Vladimir. 

The ghost snorts from in front of him and says, “I’ve been awake. You should get up; your friend is here. Misty, right?” “No, his name’s Foggy,” Matt mutters, standing and putting on a shirt as he shuffles to the door. “You have someone over?” Foggy asks, incredulous, picking up a glass, and by the waving sound, there’s liquid in it. So that would be Vladimir’s glass from last night. “Hm,” Matt says, and shuffles out. 

“I figured I’d drop by,” Foggy says, “Tell you Karen called in sick. She’s got the flu, so we might as well not go in today.” “That seems like a strange decision,” Matt says.

“So?” Foggy says, and he sets the glass down, wandering to the door again. “I have a date, actually,” he says, “So I can’t stay.” “The truth comes out,” Matt quips, and Foggy laughs. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay, Matt?” “Tomorrow, Foggy.” 

The other man leaves and Vladimir says, “Foggy is a strange name.” 

Matt yawns and sits down at the table, drinking the glass that was supposed to be Vladimir’s the night before. “That was mine,” Vladimir says, with no real bite, as he wanders by, and Matt shrugs, listening as the ghost takes the opposite of his usual seat. Apparently they’ve swapped places, today.

The Russian shifts, his leg stretching out between Matt’s, and Matt rubs the specter’s knee for a minute. 

“Я люблю тебя.” 

Matt raises his head at the sound of the Russian’s voice, and he says quietly, “What’s that mean?” 

“I love you,” the Russian responds, shrugging, and Matt says, “I love you.”

“Interesting,” Vladimir answers, but Matt can hear him smiling. He stands, stretching, to step carefully over Vladimir’s outstretched legs, moving to the doorway to get dressed for the day. 

“I thought you weren’t going to work.” “I’m not,” Matt says, “But I am going to get a few groceries and maybe run around in the mask a little.” 

“I’d rather you stay,” Vladimir says, and Matt turns, hearing him approaching, and finds himself with his back to the doorframe. He raises a hand to see how near the Russian is, and feels a bare chest instead of empty air. “I mean, I don’t want to go running around the rooftops, but I guess we can go to the store.”

“You’re a ghost,” Matt says, “I’m not sure you get tired running around the rooftops. In fact, I don’t think it’s so normal that we just confessed our love, and yet you’re dead.”

“Does it matter?” he asks, placing his hands on Matt’s hips.

“No,” decides Matt.

Fin.


End file.
